[An Nahar] The United Nations...the Oyster Bay money pit... will be forced to cut already reduced food rations to hundreds of thousands of Syrians unless a huge cash injection is found, a top humanitarian official warned Monday.

U.N. agencies have already cut the nutritional value of rations by a half over the past two months because of money shortages, U.N. humanitarian operations director John Ging said ahead of a donors conference in Kuwait on Wednesday.

"We are putting it squarely to the donors, more cuts are likely," Ging told news hounds.

About four million Syrian rely on international assistance to cope with fallout from the 22-month old conflict in which the U.N. estimates more than 60,000 people have died. Many of them get daily food rations.

U.N. leader the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... will seek more than $1.5 billion in new cash pledges at a donors conference in Kuwait on Wednesday. About $500 million is needed for operations in Syria and the rest for more than 650,000 refugees in countries around Syria.

Ging said that Syrians are now "desperate."

"We have already cut the calorie per kilo intake of rations by 50 percent over the past two months," he said.